I love that you want a thing to be a thing for another audience because you like the idea of it, even if you wouldn't be a member of said audience. You don't see that kind of nuance in ideology in tumblr fandom spaces very often. There is hope yet.
Why, thank you! To be fair, there aren’t many people clamoring for bugoni--in fact I haven’t encountered any before I decided to make it my pet issue. But I’d like to think that there would be an audience if someone tackled it right. I mean, that’s three really rad characters together, right? Also, I realized a good third possible set up for the ship: Southside High and Riverdale High merge at the beginning of the same year that Jughead moves back from Toledo. Bam, I’ve fixed the possible issue of two of the characters being involved/pining for each other before they even meet the third one.
But this is kind of my general stance on OT3s that involve my OTPs, as well as alternate ships to my OTPs. There are a number that I like in concept, but my difficulty in shipping any variation or alternative to my OTPs kind of nixes me as an audience even though I’m an advocate. Like, I wish there was Lelouch/Shirley/CC, Lelouch/Shirley/Suzaku, and Lelouch/Shirley/Kallen content (although they all have an asterisk of “this must actually include Shirley and not just be two Lelouch ships smushed together”), as well as Shirley/CC, Shirley/Kallen, Suzaku/Shirley, and Shirley/Euphemia, even though I might not read it myself. Because they’re good dynamics and would be interesting, you know? Although I did actually read the one Lelouch/Shirley/CC/Suzaku fic, even if I was disappointed because there was not as much Shirley/CC, Shirley/Suzaku, and Suzaku/CC as I would have liked. Similarly, I can appreciate ships like jopaz and bonna and Betty/Toni, which I have decided to call copaz, and, to a lesser extent, brughead, even if I won’t read them because bughead is too much in the way for me. Because I think it’s important to be able to see alternates to your OTPs even if you don’t pursue them.
But, I will say, for the OT3s and the Shirley ships, if I saw a fic with them, I would definitely give the fic a shot at this point, just to see someone try to pull it off, especially bugoni because I know that in an alternate universe where there was no bughead, I would be super into jopaz. In fact, if someone wants to come scream with me about bugoni, I would gladly do it because I think I am two steps away from actually being able to ship it.
tl;dr It’s important to keep an open mind when it comes to alternates to your ships and someone should come talk to me about bugoni.
